Confessions of an unrepentant Leninist

Abstract

The reactions to my Lenin-book for the most part move between the standard liberal anti-Communism – how do I dare to rehabilitate a mass murderer, etc. – and an apparently more friendly, but, with regard to its consequences, much more dangerous “friendly” reception, which performs a domestification of my theory, its transformation into “provocations” which are not really “meant seriously,” but aim at awakening us from the democratic-dogmatic slumber and thus contribute to the revitalization of democracy… This is how the establishment likes “subversive” theorists to be: turned into harmless gadflies who bite us and thus awaken us to inconsistencies and imperfection of our democratic enterprise – God forbid us to take their project seriously and try to LIVE them. Both reactions are totally predictable and, as such, not very interesting. When, as a reply to my thesis on Lenin’s missed chances, I read: “Sure, he could have murdered whole Russian nation along with some neighbors”; when one reacts to my commentary on Lenin with “We could just as easy comment in such a way Mein Kampf”; then such style of critique cannot but remind me of my youth in Socialist Yugoslavia where I was unemployed for years and never allowed to teach, and where my reference to Freud and Lacan was greeted by exactly the same words as those of one of my critics: “It would be embarrassingly funny if it wasn’t dangerous.” All I can say to this is that I sincerely welcome the rejection of my book by people who are able to write such slanderous lies: if they were to display even a minimum of sympathy for my work, I would be morally deeply ashamed.